I heard that Dean Stockwell suggested Cavil's suicide. (I think it was Tigh who killed him in the original script).
Good on Stockwell -- I liked the suicide. I really, really did. I thought it was much more appropriate for Cavil than a death-by-righteous-humans ending. He died on his own terms, just as he'd lived. Surviving only to be captured, killed, or otherwise humiliated by the humans would have been an "act of futility", not a proper end for a machine!
It's worth remembering that Cavil killed himself at least once before, when he was shot on New Caprica... and that the other Cylons have a religious injunction against suicide. So perhaps it could also be viewed as a final fist in the face of God!
It's ironic that Cavil, with his superior forces, didn't even bother to destroy the human fleet when he knew where they were (given Boomer locating them with ease) even after he acquired Hera. Maybe it's just me, but why doesn't he wipe humanity out? BSG is crippled, the rebel Basestar is broken, couldn't Cavil effortlessly wipe them out without breaking a sweat?
I don't think he really wanted to -- I think he wanted the Five to understand and approve of his ideals, and they couldn't do that if he killed them. Of course, the sad thing is that Cavil finally did get beyond his obsession with destroying the humans, and the Five did come to accept that his way of life was valid... and then all the 1/4/5s died, anyway, offscreen and for no reason. Oh, BSG...!
Yet I can't help but wonder why he'd nab Hera in the first place. Human/Cylon hybrid. Can't procreate without humans even if he found out what made her survive without joining humanity and their rag tag fleet. Wouldn't Cavil now be able to persuade his allies to download their consciousness into immortal metal bodies if their corporeal forms were mortal? (Something that seems unlikely given that we never see any "aged" Cylons at all).
Yeah, this never made much sense to me. I had originally thought he grabbed her in order to try to trade her for Resurrection -- which ended up being the idea, in the end, but I don't really get what all the studying was about in the meantime. The 2/6/8s think that Hera is special, but there's no particular reason why Cavil should think so, and they never bother to explain it. I guess he could have been aiming to clone her, or to create new Cylon models from her genetics somehow, but neither is convincing to me. I think this is one of the series' major plot holes; yet another example of the plot determining the actions of the characters, rather than the other way around.
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Good on Stockwell -- I liked the suicide. I really, really did. I thought it was much more appropriate for Cavil than a death-by-righteous-humans ending. He died on his own terms, just as he'd lived. Surviving only to be captured, killed, or otherwise humiliated by the humans would have been an "act of futility", not a proper end for a machine!
It's worth remembering that Cavil killed himself at least once before, when he was shot on New Caprica... and that the other Cylons have a religious injunction against suicide. So perhaps it could also be viewed as a final fist in the face of God!
It's ironic that Cavil, with his superior forces, didn't even bother to destroy the human fleet when he knew where they were (given Boomer locating them with ease) even after he acquired Hera. Maybe it's just me, but why doesn't he wipe humanity out? BSG is crippled, the rebel Basestar is broken, couldn't Cavil effortlessly wipe them out without breaking a sweat?
I don't think he really wanted to -- I think he wanted the Five to understand and approve of his ideals, and they couldn't do that if he killed them. Of course, the sad thing is that Cavil finally did get beyond his obsession with destroying the humans, and the Five did come to accept that his way of life was valid... and then all the 1/4/5s died, anyway, offscreen and for no reason. Oh, BSG...!
Yet I can't help but wonder why he'd nab Hera in the first place. Human/Cylon hybrid. Can't procreate without humans even if he found out what made her survive without joining humanity and their rag tag fleet. Wouldn't Cavil now be able to persuade his allies to download their consciousness into immortal metal bodies if their corporeal forms were mortal? (Something that seems unlikely given that we never see any "aged" Cylons at all).
Yeah, this never made much sense to me. I had originally thought he grabbed her in order to try to trade her for Resurrection -- which ended up being the idea, in the end, but I don't really get what all the studying was about in the meantime. The 2/6/8s think that Hera is special, but there's no particular reason why Cavil should think so, and they never bother to explain it. I guess he could have been aiming to clone her, or to create new Cylon models from her genetics somehow, but neither is convincing to me. I think this is one of the series' major plot holes; yet another example of the plot determining the actions of the characters, rather than the other way around.